ABSTRACT
Phenomenological sociology and Marxian analysis have both been considered as the source of basic criticisms of classical and con temporary sociological approaches, producing a ‘new direction’ for sociology and yet another re-birth of Marxism as the only science of society, in contra-distinction to ‘bourgeois’ sociology. The results have so far been generally disappointing for in each instance not only have the initial limitations of sociological thought remained, in some form or other (less generous critics might suggest that they have been enhanced), but in addition an understanding of the nature of the social world, of the relation of man and society, has not been forth coming. Indeed the continuing inadequacy of social thought as well as the frustration of social practice has produced, as we have seen, a plethora of writing addressed specifically to the question of the failure of both sociology and Marxism to account for the nature of society and social reality in general, and specific social milieu in particular. As a result the attempt to forge a synthesis of, or create a merger between, phenomenology and Marxism may be regarded as a response to the particular inadequacies of social and sociological thought, as well as to the limitations of orthodox Marxist attempts to account for social relations in societies variously described as industrial, post-capitalist or rationalized. It is perhaps true to say that the major impetus for this particular development rests more with the increased recognition of the poverty of traditional Marxist thought, in particular the omission of a theory of consciousness, rather than with any controversy over, or within, sociology and phenomenology. However, both sociology and phenomenology are addressed by phenomenological Marxism, indirectly in the case of the former, directly as far as the latter is concerned. The encounter between Marxism and phenomenology achieves significance for sociology when we examine the relationship between the theoretical
base of the phenomenological sociological critique of positivist sociology and that of the Marxian critique of pseudo-scientific approaches to the analysis of social relationships (e.g. political economy). Therefore in examining the idea of a phenomenological Marxism discussion should not be restricted in relevance to Marxist thought alone.
